TY - GEN T1 - The Emerging Genre of The Constitution: Kent Newmyer and the Heroic Age AU - Bilder, Mary Sarah AB - In written celebration of Kent Newmyer’s intellectual and collegial influence, this essay argues that the written constitution was an emerging genre in 1787-1789. Discussions of the Constitution and constitutional interpretation often rest on a set of assumptions about the Constitution that arose in the years and decades after the constitutional Convention. The most significant one involves the belief that a fixed written document was drafted in 1787 intended in our modern sense as A Constitution. This fundamental assumption is historically inaccurate. The following reflections of a constitutionalist first lay out the argument for considering the Constitution as an emerging genre and then turn to Kent Newmyer’s important influence. The Essay argues that the constitution as a system or frame of government and the instrument were not quite one and the same. This distinction helps to make sense of ten puzzling aspects of the framing era. DA - 2021-2-1 PY - 2024 PB - unav JO - Connecticut Law Review IS - 4 VL - 52 SP - 1263-1279 ER -